


dreams of dragon fire

by theLiterator



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Fictional Religion & Theology, M/M, Romance, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:29:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2834837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLiterator/pseuds/theLiterator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MAJOR GAME SPOILERS</p><p>Non-spoilery summary: male Lavellan and Solas in a romance that somewhat parallels the game. Each chapter is intended as a stand alone ficlet. </p><p>There is a true summary in the author's notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Traxits](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traxits/gifts).



> Since I stole your character to write this, I may as well claim I wrote it for you.
> 
>  _Summary:_ Mahanon knows what Solas is before they even touch. He falls in love despite this, or maybe because of this.
> 
> He was born to be a dedicant of _this_ god, whether the Dread Wolf realizes or not.

It all happens so quickly that Mahanon doesn't have time to react. He goes rigid with recognition at the same moment that the Dread Wolf's hand closes around his wrist, implacable and vise-like, and presses it up against the Fade-rift, then through. His breath catches at the pain though he has long since proved that he won't cry out from mere pain, so he allows Fen'harel to do as he wills; as any would do in this case.

It ends, and he does not move to free his hand; the Dread Wolf does not look at him, and he is absurdly grateful for that.

A thousand thousand of his Keeper's warnings, the warnings she had writ in his skin with the blood ink, well up in his mind then, and he chokes on terror so strong he suspects Fen'harel can feel it in the trembling of his hand.

"What did you do?" the Seeker demands, and Fen'harel smiles at her, slow and smug.

"I did nothing. The credit is his."

Mahanon still does not pull his wrist away. " _I_ did that?" he asks, incredulous. How it could possibly be-- but then. The Dread Wolf would not, of course, wish to declare his power so openly, would he?

They talk about him and around him for several minutes and he can't help but realize that the only part of him that is warm is his wrist, loosely wrapped in the fingers of the god who was calling himself 'Solas'.

He remains convinced that he is merely a channel for the Dread Wolf's power right up until the Breach shrinks to glimmering in the sky over his head, and Solas's shocked-white face is the last thing he sees before unconsciousness.

When he wakes, he ignores the flat-ear's insistence that he go to the Chantry- he has no _time_ for their human god, and seeks out Fen'harel with every intention of (respectfully) demanding he be allowed to take his leave.

This was never his intention in coming to this place.

Fen'harel greets him with a smirk and a barb, "The chosen of Andraste, a blessed hero to save us all," and Mahanon stumbles to a halt. He is steadied, that hand still warmer than it ought to be, and he blinks at the Dread Wolf, confused.

"But I'm not-- I don't--" He wants to fling accusations at him and doesn't. Fen'harel's smile grows teeth and Mahanon loses all boldness, collapsing to his knees in the snow.

"No, da'len," the Dread Wolf says in his ear, warm and intimate and no more teasing. "I did not nurse you and give up my bed for you to kneel in snow," and he is being ushered back inside.

Someone comes to the door while Mahanon is trying to determine why he was suddenly bundled in blankets, and he doesn't hear much of the ensuing conversation beyond a snapped "You overstep your role, Solas," and Fen- _Solas's_ retort of "What role, exactly, is that?"

"Andaran atish’an, Mahanon," Solas says, settling near him on the bed.

"This is your bed then?" Mahanon blurts out, and he _knows_ that the Keeper had just thrown up her hands in despair somewhere without _quite_ realizing why. "I mean, ah-- thank you?"

"These are my lodgings, yes. I felt it more appropriate than a cell in the Chantry, at least."

Mahanon nods, accidentally catching his eyes (they seemed kind enough, teasing, yes, but kind. Like a hunter he'd trust at his back, not like a capricious god) before tearing his gaze back down to the bedclothes.

"Mahanon, posturing is necessary," Solas says, as if that will somehow make sense to him, and then it does, and he recoils from the thought.

"I won't be-- I can't--"

Solas ignores his protest, and tells him in soft tones, "Every great war has its heroes."

Mahanon clenches his fist in the bedclothes, and he forces himself to keep his mouth shut because he knows the stories, he _knows_ the god beside him.

He just wonders who was desperate enough to pray for _his_ help.

And Solas _is_ helpful. The first time Mahanon trips a complicated lock while templars try to beat down his companions, Solas is behind him, cool green magic guarding him where his Keeper and Ellana her First had always been warm and brown like living wood, Solas laughs outright, soft and musical, and his smug pleasure is enough to irritate Cassandra, who spends the entire rest of the day before camping trying to poke holes in Solas's undampened enjoyment of their adventure.

"You have uncommon skill, Mahanon," Solas tells him while they help to pitch tents. There are soldiers.

"My Keeper always said it would bring me to grief," he replies, smiling back and forgetting, for a breath, that Solas is not _Solas_ but a god, the worst god of all, even.

"Uncommon skill often does," Solas says, and once the stakes are hammered in, he catches Mahanon loosely to his side, drawing him away from the work. Mahanon looks up over his shoulder, but no one seems to mind that he isn't pulling his fair share, so, though shirking rests uneasy on his skin, he lets him.

"Tell me of your Keeper." It isn't a question, and it isn't an order, and Mahanon balks at the idea of answering. What if he inadvertently brings this god's wrath upon her?

But Solas is fighting a battle that looks to last a lifetime, and he has yet to show his wrath to any, so Mahanon looks him in the eye and tells him.

Solas listens, head tilted, teeth glinting in the firelight. He is not grinning; he is not pleased at all.

"Children," he scoffs. "All of you are children, playing at--" Solas cuts himself off the same way Mahanon always has, with a deliberately bitten tongue and a glance to nearby people, hopeful, perhaps, that someone will interrupt. He sighs, and Mahanon wonders if he is about to be told the cost of this mess they mortals had wrought. He digs his nails into his palms and straightens his spine.

Solas pulls himself back from whatever edge he had found, and his smile returns, teasing and gentle. "Did she send you to the Conclave then?"

"Yes," Mahanon replies. "She wanted me to spy, to see what fate they would write for us without our knowledge or consent."

"And why did she send you, Mahanon?" he asks. 

Mahanon borrows his smile for a moment and says, soft and wicked so only Solas may hear, "I have uncommon skill."

He thinks, for a second, that he has been too bold, but Solas just laughs, low and velvet warm, and it is a barking laugh, cut off at parts, but it is not cruel.

***

Tonight, his dreams bring him to a vast clearing in a forest of amorphous diamond, and there is a giant wolf waiting for him.

He is unafraid, because it is a dream and with no gift for magic, none will harm him here, and he kneels before the Dread Wolf, bowing his head so his hair slips forward, baring his neck.

In his dream, the wolf balks, doesn't bite.

He awakens to Solas's hand wrapped fierce and painful around his wrist, and he thinks of the stories of the mad god, and doesn't move to free himself. Instead he carefully draws himself to a sitting position and loosens his daggers in their sheaths. When Solas doesn't stir, he smiles a fierce, canine grin and resigns himself to being night's watch.

In the morning he is tired, and Solas's eyes are troubled as they watch him. He ignores this, and how uneasy it makes him. He is used to ignoring his uneasiness, now, with the Dread Wolf as his most constant ally.

(The Dread Wolf has never locked him away, or tried to kill him, or spied on him for the Ben Hassrath. The Dread Wolf is writ in blood across his face, and he did not cry out or fear _then_.)

"Tell us a story," the Iron Bull says, the next night. Solas is hunched in on himself, arms curled around his knees, and Cassandra and Blackwall are watching him with a warm, anticipatory gaze.

Varric has a small hand tool out and is working on Bianca, and he doesn't move to tell a tale.

Mahanon realizes then that they mean him.

"I will tell you this story as my Keeper has told it to me," he begins, slow and unaccustomed to the art. Still, the Dalish are meant to be the ones who keep the lore, and he has been well taught. He had decided, almost as soon as the thought occurred to him, to tell a tale that honored his Dread Wolf rather than one that showed his caprice.

"Mythal is the goddess of all wisdom, revered among my people. Our Keepers are her dedicants, and they keep her knowledge safe and spread it to all, as is right. This was not always so.

"Wisdom creates a craving for only one thing, and that is more wisdom, so long ago, before the gods were locked away, Mythal decided upon a way to quench her thirst. She took a jar and went travelling the world with Fen'harel, the Wolf, as her guide and protector, for he alone knew all the languages, and he alone could walk through every locked door, seen and unseen.

"When Mythal had gathered the knowledge all up in her jar, for safe keeping, she decided she would keep it safe by putting it at the top of the tallest tree in the wilds. She knew she needed to keep the knowledge safe, so she bundled it to her chest and began to climb.

"The Dread Wolf watched her, and he began to laugh, a great baying laugh that sends nightmares through the night. Mythal, furious, clung to the tree with one hand and turned to face him.

"'Why do you laugh?' she demanded, and the Dread Wolf replied. 'You who has all the knowledge should know.' Just then, a great gust of wind came up and buffeted her against the tree. She tried to grasp it again, but the jar of knowledge was too big.

"'Fine,' said Mythal. 'I will wear it on my back.'

"The Dread Wolf laughed again, and Mythal ignored him, putting the jar of wisdom upon her back and resuming her climb. The Dread Wolf curled contentedly at the base of the tree, waiting for his humor to subside.

"Another great gust of wind came, and this time, Mythal had two arms to hold to fast to the tree, and was in no danger of falling from her great height. It stole the jar away, however, and it fell to the ground, spilling all of its knowledge and wisdom to spread to all corners of the earth."

"Now that," Varric says into the silence that follows his tale, "Is a story. And I know stories."

"Do your people truly still worship these gods?" Cassandra asks.

"Do yours worship theirs?" Mahanon asks.

"I thought they were supposed to be dead or something," the Iron Bull says gently. "Didn't the wolf one eat all the other ones?"

"No," Mahanon replies, and Solas stands abruptly and stalks into the night. A gust of wind comes up and everyone around the fire shivers in unison, save Mahanon. The wind is warm like the breath of a lover, to him, and he stares into the darkness that had swallowed Solas up. "The Dread Wolf locked them up, and the Forgotten Ones too. That's why there are no longer gods."

"I find it interesting that you have names for all of them except your wolf god," Cassandra says.

"His name is Fen'harel," Mahanon says. Distantly, a lone wolf howled its grief at the sky. "It is our custom not to name him, for fear of summoning him."

"But you just named him."

"I do not fear summoning him," Mahanon says, touching his face, the rivulets of blood forever marked there. "I am _his_ already."

"You truly believe in them, then," Cassandra says, low and awed. "When Andraste herself might have handed you up out of the Fade."

Mahanon shrugs, smiling ruefully at her. "Believing in the gods of my people does not preclude believing in the gods of yours," he says softly. "Besides, how can I _not_ truly believe in them? How can _you_ not?" There was no wind now, and the night is silent around them.

He grins at the looks on their faces, the deeply unsettled shifting of posture.

"You sure do know how to sell it, kid," Varric says, offering him a grin in return.

And he had known, truly, that none of them could see Solas as he was, but this confirmation makes him smile. This is one secret he is glad to have from them. He would hate to see what these shemlen would do to a god.

Or what a god would do to them.

The wolf pierces his dreams again, but late, after he'd been wandering in peace and joy for a time, and the wolf startles at his approach.

"Andaran atish'an," he whispers, crouching and holding out a hand. The wolf is wild and wary, its teeth long and its growl low. "Do I need to wake up again, and keep watch in the waking world?"

The wolf pushes him into the ground, and the forest of his childhood changes into the diamond-tree clearing, and the wolf's growl rumbles warm against his skin the way the wind had earlier.

Mahanon feels a hot tongue in his hair, on his ear, and then the wolf is gone, and he is alone in the clearing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, they visit Val Royeaux, and Mahanon is broken to pieces by what some might call 'culture shock'.

Val Royeaux is terrifying. He has tied his hair back, baring his inked face so that those he meets will know he is not like _their_ elves, and Solas is ever at his back, and he can think of worse ways to enter the seat of the Chantry than with a god, a Qunari, and one of the Chantry's most devout dedicants.

Still, he is unaccustomed to the sights, the smells, the sound, cacaphonous in his ears and thrumming through his skin, into his blood. He feels as if around any corner there might be an enemy, even as Cassandra and the Iron Bull find interesting merchants and a tavern, he stands, overwhelmed, at the center of the square.

There is a _gallows_.

He has known that the shemlen kill each other over petty crime, but here is evidence, and he is nauseous and overwhelmed, and then Solas has a hand on his shoulder, guiding him to a side alley (he thinks it must be an alley. It is narrow and dank and exactly like the alleys described in Tale of the Champion) and imposing himself between Mahanon and the rest of Val Royeaux.

"Are you all right?" Solas asks, and Mahanon nods and tries to stand of his own strength, fails utterly.

Solas takes his weight, shifting their positions so that Mahanon is wrapped in his arms, back against the alley wall.

It is a lovers' embrace.

Or, it would be, were Solas not a god.

Still, he loses himself in Solas's critical, assessing gaze, until fingers trail his cheeks in paths Mahanon knows well. "This is ugly," he said. "I cannot look at you without seeing it."

Mahanon reels, and he shoves the Dread Wolf away. "It is mine," he hisses, putting his back to Solas. "I did not flinch or cry once."

"Ah, da'len," Solas says. "I should not have said that. It was unthinking."

"I am _not_ your child," Mahanon hisses, and it is a lie. But who better to witness his lies than the god of lies?

"No," Solas says, and Mahanon turns, an apology half formed on his lips. "You aren't. Ar abelas, lethallin," he adds before Mahanon can say anything.

Mahanon nods wordlessly, unsure of what to do with the apology except tuck it close in his memory to be examined later.

"We can leave. There is likely to be no assembly of the Divines, not now. We will send a boy to inform the others."

"No," Mahanon says. "Not yet. I wish--I _must_ see the Alienage."

"Very well," Solas says, and his eyes flicker through emotions as quick as madness before going flat and assessing again.

"Ma serennas," Mahanon replies. "I would understand if you wished to remain here, though."

"And leave you unguarded in your very first city? I would be most remiss." The smirk was back, teasing in at the edges of his lips and eyes.

Mahanon, greatly daring, took his hand and drew him from the alley. They were given wide berth in the streets, and Mahanon could be nothing but grateful for that. Touch was always deliberate for him, and the hand curled with his was testament to that. These shemlens in this city touched casually, constantly, and it set his teeth on edge to only _watch_. He could not fathom enduring it.

He did not expect he _could_.

Solas knew the way, guiding them through the unnavigable streets, pointing out signs and landmarks, presumably as a lesson in general knowledge. More likely, so that he might find his way free of the city, should something go wrong.

The border between the slums and the Alienage was abrupt and obvious. Suddenly, the buildings were tall and cramped together, and Mahanon thinks, for a moment, that they had choked out all of the air as well, but Solas keeps his hand in a loose, comforting grip.

"Why?" Mahanon chokes out. There are elves everywhere. Filthy children play chase in the street while elders look on. Everything is mud where there had been cobblestones just paces before.

There is a single tree in the center of the square, not as tall as the tallest, slouching tenement, and Mahanon ignores everything else, making his way straight for that familiar sight. Except--

He draws up short once he realizes that the tree is not at all familiar. Coins are embedded all through its bark, up as high as Mahanon could see. Bright ribbons and frayed ones are nailed in, tied to branches, knotted on leaves.

"They call it vhenadahl," Solas says.

Mahanon knew that, distantly, as one knows that there are such things as cities, or that in Tevinter mages are free and elves aren't.

To see it, though. Well.

"It represents shelter," Mahanon says. "And it is where they lay their hopes to rest so that the weight of them will no longer bow them."

Solas jerks on his hand and forces Mahanon to look at him. "What makes you say such a thing?" he demands, and his eyes are wide and haunted, hunted.

"I... it's _true_. My Keeper must have--"

He is interrupted by a young man. "I am Hahren Mallian, and you are welcome here, cousins."

"Ma serennas," Mahanon replies out of habit, inclining his head as he would to his Keeper.

A wave of silence ripples out from the three of them, until the only sounds in the square are that of water dripping, and laundry flapping slightly in the fetid breeze.

"A _distant_ cousin, then," Hahren Mallian says, inclining his head in return. "Well met regardless. What brings you here?"

He is unwelcome, Mahanon realizes. He glances around at the crowd as it grows steadily and silently. People cram themselves into window frames above the square and fill up every inch of available space to gaze at their spectacle.

"I have never been to a city," Mahanon blurts. "I knew I had cousins here, my Keeper told me as much. I wanted..."

He trails off, because he isn't sure why the desire had struck. "I wanted to pay my respects to the blood of my blood," he settles on. It is not a lie, not exactly.

"Thank you, cousin."

"My name is Mahanon, of the clan Lavellan," he says. "This is Solas." He doesn't care that he has just sort of adopted Solas into his clan without permission or authority. It doesn't matter anyway, he reminds himself, because Solas is a god, and he can belong to any clan he likes.

Solas smiles at him with the edges of his expression, though the rest of it remains blandly respectful. "Well met," he says.

"Do you have treats?" a bold child asks, and he looks down at his feet and the flutter of children that have crept up on him while he tried to sort out his intentions.

"We have trail rations," Solas says. "And Mahanon tells stories of his people."

Mahanon nearly panics then, it feels so much like the walls are closing in on him. He cannot tell his stories, they are stories of the old gods, and these children will lose this scant shelter if he...

"Fairy tales," Hahren Mallian says. "But hopefully they hold lessons still, right, Mahanon?"

"Yes," Mahanon says, sighing gustily and smiling sheepishly. "They still hold lessons."

He takes great pleasure in perching on a low branch of the vhenadahl and telling every story of the Dread Wolf he has ever liked, good or bad.

Food is being prepared somewhere; the scent of it is washing away the odor of too many inhabitants in too small a space. Mahanon does not hope they will be invited to stay, though they likely will be: Solas had distributed their jerky and dried fruit to the children long since, and food shared earns food in return (Mahanon doesn't mind this; the children have sallow skin and sunken eyes from hunger and want of fruit.)

"Are you a mage?" a girl asks, her voice fluting through the crowd's murmuring and shifting. "Mistress Amelie says all the Dalish are apostates and the Chantry ought to wipe them out."

"No," Mahanon says easily. "There is little magic among our kind, now."

"If you have magic," a boy says. "You get to go to the Tower."

Mahanon nods slowly. He can see why that would appeal to these hungry children.

"I will tell you a story about the Dread Wolf and One Hundred Towers," he says. Solas winces visibly, and Mahanon cannot help the laugh that builds at that.

At the worried queries from child and adult alike, he blushes and merely murmurs "It is my favorite," and then tells the tale.

He winces when the food is doled around; it is unappetizing trash, and he can see that these need it far more than he does. He has gold (which he tried to give to Hahren Mallian in a quiet moment and was turned down coldly. He hadn’t realized they would take offense. He should have.) and he has his bow; both of which are more than anyone here has.

Solas presses himself to Mahanon’s back and leans over his shoulder, brushing his hair out of the way. One of the children has been drilling Mahanon on his letters the way Josephine does, because there had been no need to learn them in the wilds, but he was a Herald now, and expected to read.

The book is a child’s primer, brightly colored once, faded now, and he imagined that that was indicative of his people as a whole.

“You are sad,” Solas says. “And scared.”

“Is this better?” Mahanon asks. “You call the Dalish children playing, but this is the alternative. Is it preferable.”

Solas sighs and settles his weight. Deft hands try to take Mahanon’s pouch, but his are defter. He catches a child’s fearful gaze, and pulls out a shiny copper coin, dancing it across his hands before pressing it into hers, pressing his fingers to his lips to impress her to secrecy.

“”No. It is never better.”

Despair from his god, Mahanon thinks, is a heady, powerful thing. It radiates out and into him, and it makes him want to howl with fury and the feeling of entrapment. He should pull away, distance himself from Solas, but he knows it will not help.

None of those around him notice.

Are they all so completely disconnected from their culture? The despair wends deeper.

“You will spend the night,” Hahren Mallian tells them, and Solas accepts for both of them. They share a cot in the best room of the best tenement, and of course that means he dreams of the diamond wood again.

The wolf is keening, but no matter how Mahanon runs his hands through the fur, over the limbs and tail and ears, he can find no hurts to soothe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New boots.

He has his own bed in the corner of Solas’s cabin, piled high with furs and made perfect by a sachet of calming herbs someone had slipped under the pillow early in his stay.

Solas’s cabin is safe; it is warm, and since people rarely seek to bother Solas, it is quiet. He is hunched over his boot, feet tucked neatly under his thighs, trying to align his stitches well enough that the leather wouldn’t warp under their pressure, when Cassandra bursts in.

“Is this true, Herald?”

Mahanon will admit to having dropped his shoe in surprise, but only because he had hardly expected to be interrupted by Cassandra, and after dark, too. Solas, Josephine, and, of all people, Cullen all pile into the cabin behind her.

“I-- what?” he asks.

Instead of answering, Cassandra snatches his boot off the floor and brandishes it at him.

“Are your boots falling apart?”

“No!” he snaps defensively, reaching, quick as a snake, to take his boot back and clutch it to his chest. “It was only new at the Conclave. It’s perfectly fine. They’re _both_ perfectly fine.”

True, they could probably do with new soles, but he was waiting on an appropriate leather to come in and be tanned. He had his order in with Harritt; it would be fine in a few days.

“Let me see, Mahanon,” Cullen says, and it’s a tone of voice Mahanon has only heard him use with new recruits. “It’s alright, I’ll give it back.”

Mahanon doesn’t trust that, but he’d always been the quickest and the quietest, and here it seemed he was even quicker, even quieter (as if the Dread Wolf himself were hiding his tracks, they used to say in his clan.) and he knew there was no place they could put his boots that he wouldn’t find them and take them back.

They’d been new just a few months ago.

He passes the boot to Cullen, who analyzes it carefully, prodding at places the leather had been cut. “Quick on your feet, aren’t you? Or you’d have to be. Thrice-damned lucky, we’d say back in the Circle, if you had been one of ours. You do the repairs yourself? Of course you do, you’ve got needle and thread there.”

Mahanon curls his fingers into fists and then uncurls them. Solas had moved sureptitiously to Mahanon’s side during the careful inspection of the boot, and at Cullen’s comments, had dropped a too-warm hand to Mahanon’s shoulder.

 _Dread Wolf protect me,_ he thought irreverently, even as he leaned into the touch.

“It’s a good job,” Cullen says. “The problem isn’t whether you’re taking care of your gear. It’s that you feel you have to.”

“You’re an icon to them,” Solas says.

“People think we cannot afford to shoe you properly, and it lowers morale,” Josephine adds.

“What?” he asks, accepting his boot back from Cullen. “But I _have_ proper shoes.”

“Leliana is, even now, directing Harritt in the manufacture and design of proper footwear for an esteemed archer,” Josephine says gently. “He’ll be here shortly to take your measure for forms.”

“But--”

“It is a gift, lethallin,” Solas says, sitting down on the cot with him. Mahanon is abruptly aware of how small his own bed is in comparison to the other in the room.

Not that he’d be comfortable in such a large bed; the covers would eat him up and the cotton ticking would digest him whole.

Solas’s arm wraps around his shoulders, and that’s when Mahanon realizes that Solas is on _their_ side in this. He feels oddly betrayed, and he would shrug out from the embrace, but he doesn’t dare insult the god so overtly.

“Would you reject a gift?”

Mahanon shakes his head.

“You were right,” Cassandra says, sounding accusing. “This would never have happened without you here. Who would say _no_ to new shoes?”

“The Dalish may be misguided, but they are still _proud_.”

Luckily, Leliana saves him from further humiliation by arriving with Harritt just then, a pair of ugly hide pieces and charcoal in her hands.

He endures having his feet traced as he stands, and sits, and draws a bow (Leliana’s, as he won’t deign to unpack his own gear for this farce,) and he is oddly tired when they all parade out again, leaving him alone with Solas.

Once they are in their beds and the lamps have all been doused, he rolls to face Solas's bed. “I don’t want their shoes,” he whispers into the dark, the fire flickering a deep copper that doesn’t properly illuminate the room. He is on the verge of sleep (and with Solas half a room away, his dreams will be true and unremarkable) when he thinks he might hear, murmured back across that limitless gulf between darkness and slumber, “I know, ma vhenin.”

They must have made Harritt work the night through, which irks Mahanon even more, because he is eating breakfast with Varric and the Iron Bull in the tavern when Leliana appears at his shoulder with the new boots.

The very first thing he checks are the soles; he’s seen the wooden- and metal-soled monstrosities most of the humans wear. These are neither; still leather, though harder, and with a strange texture to them that he doesn’t recognize. They are buffed to a deep, dull brown that will be perfect in many terrains, and he has to admit to himself that the shoes are impressive.

“Well, go on then,” Leliana says, irrepressible in her excitement. “Try the fit. I will go yell at Harritt if it is wrong.

Mahanon unlaces his own boots right there, and he is aware that people are watching. He’s not one to put on shows, though, so he just pulls the new boots on in their place. “They’re fine,” he says.

Leliana makes a low, frustrated noise, and Varric touches his elbow, loose and light the way a clansman might. “Maybe you should go to the range, practice combat while wearing them? You’re probably not used to the style, and better that if something goes wrong, it go wrong here.”

“I suppose,” Mahanon says, frowning down at the new shoes. The cut of them, the style, the shape of the toe-- it is all unfamiliar. His feet look like a stranger’s feet.

The walk to the range makes him all the more aware of the boots. The soles are… springy. He can still feel the terrain under his toes; the places where the ice is slick or the stones are loose, but it’s a little more distant; everything a little muted. He isn’t certain he _dislikes_ the feeling, the way his whole foot feels cradled by the material, and that, perversely, irritates him.

By the time he is at the range, all activity around Haven has stopped, eyes on him, and he is in a foul mood.

He takes up the nearest practice bow, and it’s too long for him, the draw too hard, but he ignores that and nocks an arrow, hitting the farthest target in the farthest lane dead center, prompting a protest from the person in that lane.

He ignores the way Cullen turns at the noise, darts between a pair of soldiers who’ve ceased their shortsword practice, and fires another three arrows, one of which clips Cassandra (who is trying to stop him, rushing between the targets and dodging the eerily still recruits.) and still makes its mark, not even a breath off.

Someone touches his shoulder, and he turns wildly, using the too-large bow as a staff to club what turns out to be Commander Cullen. Cullen hadn’t expected the attack, so he goes down quickly, and Mahanon slings his (now stolen) bow over his shoulder by the bowstring and his new boots grip perfectly to the scree and then the boulders at the back of the practice range.

Everyone starts shouting suddenly, but he doesn’t even hear them as he flees them and their stupid expectations.

They don’t catch him; they don’t find him. He makes camp as the sun hovers at the edge of the mountaintops, and the fire is just starting to burn properly when full dark hits, as it always does in the mountains, with all the suddenness of being dropped into a hole. he had shot a rabbit once he’d lost his pursuers, and he made a horrible hash skinning the creature, but the meat would still be good, even though he doesn’t even have a camp pot to make a stew with.

Wind gusts through just as he determines that his meal is cooked, and it makes the hair at the back of his neck go stiff in warning. He rolls his shoulders (already starting to ache from the bow,) and looks out of the circle of the firelight into a pair of eyes, Fade-green and glowing in reflected moonlight.

“Solas,” he says warmly, and the Dread Wolf comes into the light of his fire, and he appears to be an elf again, though there is something feral about him, this eve, that isn’t normally so _present_. Mahanon bares his teeth.

“They think you a _child_ ; da’len,” Solas says acidly. “You jeopardize _everything_.”

"You mean, of course, that I jeopardize your quest for that artifact,” Mahanon says, the night air making him brave; the day before having already proved him foolish.

Solas sighs and runs both hands over his head, shivering slightly and then blinking at Mahanon with eerily reflective eyes.

“Yes. No. You remain in a rather delicate position. Many still would have you hanged or worse for taking part in what happened at the Conclave.”

“You sound like Josephine.”

“Josephine is clever,” Solas says, adding cruelly, “More clever than you by far, little boy.”

Mahanon remembers, suddenly, that he faces a god in the firelight; the _worst_ god, who is infected by madness and surety and wit. The god who locked all the others away.

Something of this must cross his expression, because Solas relents, leaning back and setting his staff aside. “I am sorry, lethallin. I should not have let my anger control me like that.”

“By that reasoning,” Mahanon says softly, “I should be apologizing to you.”

Solas sighs and Mahanon wonders if he should go around the fire, offer him his warmth and his rabbit. He doesn’t, because Solas always bridges the spaces between them, as is his right, but he wants to.

“I expected to find you upset,” Solas says gently.

“The boots are fine. They’re wonderful. What is there to be upset about?”

“They aren’t _yours_.”

Mahanon laughs. It hurts, deep down in his gut, and he tosses his head back and opens his throat to it, the laughter, and the hysteria under it. “Nothing is _mine_ ,” he exclaims when the laughter breaks apart and shatters dully around him. “Nothing belongs to me here, _lethallin_.” The last is meant to mock Fen’harel’s familiarity with him, but it doesn’t come out quite right. it twists in his now-sore throat and drops between them like embers from the fire, warm and warming, but fading fast until he isn’t sure he said it at all.

“Blood of my blood,” Solas says musingly. “I am not sure that is quite right, Mahanon, though I would gladly call you kinsman.”

Mahanon ignores his sudden desire to reach and touch and grip and _prove_. “You do already,” he says instead of anything else.

“You do not, though.”

“It seems disrespectful. I know-- I am aware that you find the Dalish disappointing.”

“I am not disappointed by _you,_ ” Solas says, and something lengthens in his smile, and his eyes brighten up to green.

“Not even by my lack of cleverness.”

“I did not mean it; you are clever enough for ten men, Mahanon. One hundred.”

Mahanon cannot resist the urge any longer, and he seizes the spitted rabbit and crosses to Solas’s side in a moment. “Here,” he says, offering the rabbit; it is a poor enough sacrifice, but it is also a traditional one.

Solas takes a knife from his belt and carves off a good chunk of meat, which he then hands to Mahanon, who takes it mutely. He stares at it. “You can have it,” he says.

“It’s your supper, lethallin,” Solas says, and his amusement ripples with something deeper, something Mahanon doesn’t really want to catch hold of or think about. “Would you prefer it if I put it between your teeth for you?”

Mahanon shakes his head slightly, although at that statement, he cannot help the way he stares at Solas’s hands, his long, graceful fingers.

They eat together in silence, and Solas lays out the single bedroll he’d brought. Mahanon’s eyes dart warily from Solas to the blankets and back. He is not sure where his hesitation lies; he has shared space with Solas so often since meeting him that he is as familiar with his skin as with his own, but now it feels different. Weighted.

Still, he has not shown fear to Fen’harel before, and he’ll not start tonight, so he settles himself among the blankets and lets Solas curl around him, too-warm and perfect.

He does not realize that he has fallen asleep; only that he is in a replica of his clan’s camp, every aravel in formation. The only thing wrong is the missing people. He is barefoot, which strikes him as odd.

He heads straight for the edge of the camp, to where he knows he will find Solas, collecting wildflowers along the way for something to leave with the wolf idol that faces away from the safe little circle of _home_.

He crouches to drop them at the Dread Wolf’s feet and turns, startled to see Solas there as _Solas_ , not in his wolf form.

“I thought this was a dream,” he says.

“It is,” Solas says. “It is safe here. Why do you do that?” He gestures at the little pile of wildflowers.

“Make an offering?” Mahanon turns back to the idol and kneels at its base to tidy the flowers. “Why not?”

“It perplexes me. Don’t the Dalish fear the Dread Wolf?”

“Do they?” Mahanon asks, looking up over his shoulder at Fen’harel. “Respect, yes, but would you use the vallaslin in someone’s image on the face a boy who is on the verge of manhood if you truly feared them?”

“Yes,” Solas says without hesitation. "Especially then."

“Then, would you not also make an offering to the same god every time you walked past his image? Assuming of course, that you feared him enough to sacrifice a boy to him every other generation.”

“You don’t, then. Fear him."

Mahanon straightens and meets his god’s eyes. “No. As I said, I respect him. He has real power over this world where the others no longer do-- or is that part wrong as well?” Solas nods, then shakes his head. “But fear him? I could no more fear a thunderstorm, or a mountainside.”

“What do you fear, then, ma vhenin?”

Mahanon shivers at the words, but he moves closer, as though the endearment is an invitation.

Perhaps it is, because Solas’s arms gather him close as soon as he is near enough to embrace.

“The Breach. Taking a misstep. New boots.” The last he says wryly, and Solas laughs, so Mahanon darts up to kiss him.

He has not kissed before, except in dreams (that still holds now, he knows, but this is different.)

Solas pulls away, though Mahanon clings to him. “We cannot, ma vhenin, not even here.”

“Who is there to stop you?” Mahanon asks, thinking on Andruil and her beauty, or Mythal and her wisdom.

“As it has been for my entire existence, there is only myself to stop me, ma vhenin.”

Mahanon stands fully back then. “But why? Why can’t we?”

“ _Wake up_.”

Mahanon sits straight up, the blankets falling loose around him, leaving him chilled and startled.

“ _That_ was cruel,” he hisses at Solas, and he gathers his things and starts back down the mountain to Haven.

Solas makes no protest, nor does he move to stop him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It bugs me that Elven has only one gendered noun. My spelling of ma vhenin is deliberate.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Playing with fire.
> 
> Or: the Iron Bull would probably still do this even if he knew what Solas was. He's ~~stubborn~~ loyal like that.

“So what’s got you down?” Sera demands, sitting down on the stool next to his at the bar and staring intently at him.

Mahanon looks at her, suspicious. She doesn't actually like him; he has no idea why she’s talking to him.

She sighs. “Well, Bull wanted to know, but I told him he couldn't ask, right? He lacks finesse, so here I am.”

Mahanon shrugs. “I’m fine,” he says, sipping on his hot tea. Solas detested the stuff, so he’d stopped drinking it for a time. He’d missed the slow warmth of it, and he savors it now.

“I’m going to make a few guesses, and if I’m right, I get the prize, got it?”

Mahanon ignores her and takes another long sip of tea.

“You and Solas aren't buggering anymore, right?”

Mahanon chokes on his tea. “What?” he splutters.

“Knew it!” Sera singsongs, gleeful.

“No!”

“‘S too bad, really. He seems okay, for a high-and-mighty elf type. No offense.”

“No, I mean, it’s not an ‘anymore,’ Sera. Solas and I were never-- he’s-- it’s just not going to happen.”

“Well now _that_ I don’t believe. He looks at you like-- like a really great haul at the end of a boring heist. Like something he wasn't expecting but now he’s got it, it’s all good and his fence is gonna kiss him when he brings it in. You in-- aw, bugger all.”

Mahanon carefully folds his fingers around his mug of tea, steadfastly ignoring Sera. She would normally grow bored and wander off.

Instead, she crowds closer, too close, and rests her chin on her hands.

“You having trouble keeping him happy then? I know a little, I’d guess a little more than you by the looks of things, even if that ain't my way of doing things, got it?”

Mahanon stares at her, utterly confused.

“And he has no idea what I’m talking about. Typical.” She turns away then, and Mahanon breathes a relieved sigh, which is cut off by her shout of “Bull! Bull come over here; you know your way about it, right? He’s a bloody _virgin_.”

Mahanon feels certain that if he truly were the chosen of Andraste, she would have kindly burned him on the spot then and there.

“Andraste's knickers,” Sera says, “a virgin! Well we can’t have that, now can we? Bull!”

The Iron Bull comes over and hushes Sera good-naturedly, and Mahanon feels as though the humiliation is dripping off of him in waves.

“Hey kid, what’s all this about?” the Iron Bull asks, curling a huge hand protectively around Mahanon’s shoulder and pulling him in close. Mahanon nearly loses his seat on the bar stool, but the Iron Bull isn't _trying_ to yank him off, so he manages to recover at the last second.

“Well, _you_ remember, Bull?” Sera says. “You were saying something something trouble in paradise, and _I_ said, ‘Well _you_ can’t ask, you and subtle ain't even in spitting distance,’ didn't I? So _I_ asked, and I found out the reason. He’s a virgin, isn't he?”

“That’s not--”

“Well now,” the Iron Bull says. “Isn't that something else. I thought you Dalish had orgies at midsummer and danced among the moonbeams and flowers or something something fertility something.”

Mahanon wraps his arms around his chest and shudders. “That isn't why!" he snaps, choosing to ignore the rest. "He’s not… it doesn't matter. He doesn't want me, and I am _fine_.”

“Who told you he didn't _want_ you, kid?” the Iron Bull says. “Because that’s a blatant lie. Anyone with eyes can see he’s taken with you.”

“He isn't, he just needs me to-- he needs the mark in my hand.”

Mahanon knows that the Ben Hassrath wouldn't have missed that slip, but he doesn't care anymore.

“Uh-huh,” the Iron Bull says slowly, and it doesn't quite drown out Sera’s disgusted exclamation of “Elves!”

“Well, in that case, why not make time with other people? Come drink with me and my Chargers; make some friends. You don’t have to be alone.”

“I don’t really… people,” Mahanon whispers, and the Iron Bull either doesn't hear him or pretends not to, because he is scooped up against a _very_ muscular chest and carried to the corner where the Chargers are enjoying their breakfast.

“I've got an errand to run, but let me know if you need any help with… that _thing_ Sera mentioned,” he says as he carefully sets Mahanon in a seat between an elf woman and Krem, the only person whose name he knows.

“Errand?” Mahanon asks, but the Iron Bull is already nearly out the door.

“Don’t strain yourself, Herald,” Krem says, patting his hand. “The Boss does what the Boss does. Here, have an ale.”

***

“Elf!” the Iron Bull says as he strides up. “What did you do to that kid?”

“Kid?” Solas asks, setting a book aside to regard the Iron Bull evenly. “To whom do you refer, Qunari?” The subtlest of emphasis on the epithet would have made a lesser man quail, but he was the Iron Bull.

“You know he’s a virgin, right?”

Solas shakes his head. “It is unlikely; reproduction is a priority among the Dalish. He’s doubtless had at least one lover.”

“Unless he prefers other boys,” the Iron Bull says bluntly. “How high is _that_ priority?”

The Iron Bull watches with petty satisfaction as Solas winces. “His affection is misplaced, regardless. I have informed him of this. The matter is, shockingly, not your business.”

“Misplaced,” the Iron Bull says in a voice that has made army commanders shit themselves. Solas doesn't even give him the satisfaction of wincing again. He sighs and takes a seat next to Solas.

“I like you,” the Iron Bull tells the elf solemnly. “You’re funny. I like the kid better.”

“He is not actually a child, you know,” Solas says, and his lips quirk in an ironic little grin.

“And I’m not actually as dumb as I look. I can tell you like the kid better than most of us do, which is saying a lot.”

“If you have a point, I suggest you--”

“You could die tomorrow, elf. _He_ could die tomorrow,” the Iron Bull continues, ignoring Solas's fraying temper. “He’s devoted to you; anyone will tell you that--”

“Do you think I don’t _know_?” Solas demands, slamming his book shut and lurching to his feet to pace. “I cannot touch him. He does not know what he courts.”

“Seems to me he knows you a lot better than he knows any of us; but he plays his hand close to his chest. Maybe if you tried _talking_ to him--”

“I remember what it was like, you know. The heat of desire, the flush of attraction. But I _cannot_. I _must_ not!”

“Well, _that’s_ bullshit." The Iron Bull makes as if to return to the tavern. "Anyway, I’ll just go offer to help him out with his little problem. Good talk.”

Solas freezes him, and the Iron Bull fights hard to keep from shouting in triumph. “What. Problem.”

“You know, the virgin thing. Like I said, the kid could die tomorrow, and that’d be a damned waste, wouldn't it.”

“You will _not_ ,” Solas growls, and the Iron Bull notes the way fury warps his features. The elf makes a surprisingly attractive jealous lover. He likes that in a man.

“Well, finders keepers, I say.”

The elf rages for several minutes in his disturbingly fluent elven before Mahanon stumbles into them, flushed with too much drink, a hunted cast to his eyes.

“Solas!” the boy snaps, and the Iron Bull smiles at the two of them. “Why are you d-doing that to Bull?”

Solas turns to the kid, and, as always, his whole demeanor transforms, face flickering from joy to guilt to longing in a flash, and the Iron Bull finds himself freed. “A mere misunderstanding, ma vhe-- lethallin.”

Whatever he’d been about to say makes Mahanon angry, because he crosses his arms across his chest and says, “Stop it. If you don’t want me, that’s fine, but don’t-- you can’t say things like that. Please.” The last is said in a respectful tone that is completely at odds with the rest of his words.

They've definitely got a weird dynamic, but the Iron Bull isn't one to make bones about that. He retreats around a corner, the better to eavesdrop without allowing his presence to influence outcomes. Varric would be very proud.

“Ma vhenin,” Solas says, sounding defeated. “Come-- oh, I--” and then Mahanon murmurs, low and broken: “I am already leading an army for you. What else must I do--”

“That, ma vhenin, is exactly why I shouldn't. You have no idea what I will do to you.”

“I-- know the stories are incomplete.”

 _Stories?_ the Iron Bull wonders, and Solas echoes the sentiment aloud. “Stories?”

“Oh, never mind. Just. Can we kiss then? Like in the dream.”

“I begin to suspect that I will never be able to tell you no, ma vhenin,” Solas replies wryly, sounding much more like himself than he has since Mahanon had emerged from the woods, alone, and set to pretending the other elf didn't exist.

Varric comes around from the other side of the cabin and pokes him in the side. “If there’s one thing I've learned, it’s that what comes next has to come from them. Come on, you owe me at least two drinks.”

“How do you figure?” he demands good-naturedly, even as he allows Varric to usher him away.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Redcliffe! From Dorian's POV.
> 
> With bonus backstory from Mahanon.

Dorian was, admittedly, concerned that this so-called Herald person would faint when he finally found him in the decidedly changed dungeons of Redcliffe Castle, given how pale he was.

"Are you quite alright?" Dorian asked, and the boy rounded on him, eyes glinting with determination laid on terror, and snarled.

There was something decidedly feral about the boy, that was certain, and laid out alongside Solas's quiet civility, he had to wonder why _anyone_ thought him reliable.

Still, Dorian knew he was the only person upon whom he _could_ rely right now, so he didn't say anything disparaging about fear and weakness.

"I am not," the boy hissed, and Dorian forced himself to smile.

"We will find a way back," Dorian said, feigning confidence.

"We'll find more prisoners," the boy said. "Fiona seemed to think there were more, and _then_ we will find a way back."

Dorian wondered if the boy thought they could take the others with them.

The Iron Bull's affection for the boy was obvious and inelegant, and Dorian dutifully averted his eyes while the supposed-Qunari swung the boy up and embraced him messily.

"Solas is here too, kid," the Iron Bull said.

"I had hoped," the boy said. "But... I wasn't sure."

"We all got nabbed right after you two disappeared. Where else would he be?"

"At the edges of the world, howling," the boy said seriously.

Dorian snorted. "Not everything lines up with your ridiculous superstitions, you know," he said coolly. The boy seized his gaze, and the branding on his face was stark and ugly in the red light of the corrupt lyrium.

"No, not _everything,_ " he said softly. "But enough."

"Naw, kid. He wouldn't have left you behind," the Iron Bull said. "Not while there was the slightest chance you lived."

The boy snorted this time, and shook his hair back. "He would know I wasn't in this time," he said. "He would have dreamed it, or failed to dream it."

"Dreams don't work that way," Dorian said primly. "Not even for mages."

"They do for Solas," the boy replied, a knowing smirk twisting his features and washing away the fear.

Dorian shivered at that surety, but dismissed it as silly superstition. Of course the elf would see a powerful mage and think him omnipotent. He was young and impressionable and who knew what kind of wild beliefs the Dalish had developed since they'd left Tevinter.

Solas was... Solas was _wrong_ when they found him. Twisted and wrapped in that red lyrium taint, he looked like madness and death, and Dorian held back out of horror, the Iron Bull as reticent at his side, while the boy ignored that and flung himself into the mage's arms.

"Ma vhenin," Solas murmured, and then he whispered into the boy's hair, soft fluid Elvish that Dorian couldn't follow. The boy nodded though, and gripped the mage all the tighter before drawing back.

"You don't look well," the boy declared.

"I am well enough," Solas said. Dorian rather doubted that.

"Are you?" the boy asked, and there was a sudden shrewd keenness to his posture that Dorian almost couldn't credit. "Kiss me, and I'll tell you."

Solas, much to Dorian's surprise, leaned in and brushed his lips up to the boy's, and the boy responded delicately, his balance perfect even as Solas swayed heavily.

"You taste of rot and nightmares," the boy said clearly.

"I am well enough," Solas repeated. The boy shook his head slightly, but Solas pressed a finger to his lips. "I must be, mustn't I?"

"The world hasn't ended yet," the boy said, and it must have been agreement, because Solas smiled.

At the first sign of combat, the boy disappeared, and Dorian felt disgust and fear well up and war with one another, but his _own_ survival was far more important, so he drew the magic forth and started casting.

He startled when, as a hulking behemoth was stumbling towards him, it sprouted three arrows, too quickly to be seen, and dropped to the floor.

There was no time for guilt or shame at assuming the worst though, because the once-human _monsters_ seemed to be coming from nowhere and everywhere, and magic felt slick and oily and _wrong_ whenever Dorian grasped for it, so that everything was twice as hard, and he was sweating and panting once every one of the creatures had finally been defeated.

The boy slipped back in among them like he hadn't left, and the Iron Bull ruffled his hair like he really was a child. "Nice aim, kid," he said.

The boy snorted. "You say that after every battle," he replied.

"Well, you haven't shot me yet, so I figure it's still true."

The boy tucked up close against Solas, still smiling, and Dorian was surprised to see the mage leaning heavily on him.

"Are you alright?" Dorian asked, fumbling in his pouches for potions to press onto him.

"Are there even any Dalish left?" the boy asked quietly. "Am I all you have?"

Solas froze, and the moment stretched thin and brittle with tension. "Not... exactly, ma vhenin," he said softly.

The boy frowned. Jealous? Dorian wondered.

"All of this, the red lyrium, you see it, right?"

The boy nodded, and they turned into a hallway that was nearly entirely lyrium, pulsating sickeningly in the dark.

"It's growing in the Fade, too."

"Are _they_ in danger then?" the boy asked, and Solas didn't stop this time, but his expression flickered surprised for a moment, and Dorian wondered what it was they were talking about.

"They aren't in the Fade," Solas replied quietly.

The boy frowned and then traced fingers along the tattoos on his face. "Then you can't know either way."

"Ma vhenin," Solas whispered. "How did I not--" he cut himself up with an abrupt, almost canine shudder, and he drew the boy close against his side and forced a trembling smile. His eyes sparked green instead of red for a moment, and there was a taste of otherworldly magic on the air that shored Dorian up and even caused the Iron Bull's spine to straighten.

"Tell us about your tattoos," Dorian said when the silence threatened to overwhelm.

The boy smirked.

"I earned them," he said.

"How? They say me you are a storyteller, second in the camp only to Varric Tethras," Dorian prompted.

"I am dogged by the Dread Wolf," he said, sending a laughter-filled gaze Dorian's way, and Solas snorted.

After a moment, he began in earnest. "When I was first apprenticed to the hunters, they lost me for one week-- not deliberately, or as a test. Just... lost."

"You ran away?" Dorian asked.

The boy fixed him with a solid look. "You think that of me, don't you?" he asked, but continued immediately, not giving Dorian a chance to reply. "I don't know. One moment I was with the hunters, and the next I was not. There was-- it was a forest, so there were forest-things, like spiders and bears and..."

"Wolves," Solas said, sounding surprised.

The boy smirked. "Wolves," he agreed. "I followed them the whole week, and they let me share their kills, and they kept me warm when it was cold, and then, then-- there are places where the Veil is thin. You're a mage, Dorian, you probably understand better than I do, but.. they walked through a fold between worlds and they were gone. The hunters found me there, waiting, after just a few hours."

The boy took a deep breath.

"After that, no one could track me. I can be silent and invisible even under noonday sun. My Keeper, she watched me use that to get into trouble and more trouble, and she... when it came time for me to be dedicated, to become a man, she told me she thought I was _his_." 

"I... could have asked for anything else, except perhaps Mythal, because wisdom and cleverness are not the same thing, but. But she was right, wasn't she? I _am_ Fen'harel's."

"Ma vhenin, you belong to no--"

"Except for how I do," the boy interrupted firmly.

"I don't--"

"I have done everything you have asked of me, have I not?" the boy demanded, and Dorian wondered what conversation they were having, because it didn’t seem to be of this world.

Solas made a low noise, like a growl but pained, sad. "If I had simply _thought_ \--"

They were rushed then, and it was as he'd said-- even in a crowded corridor, one moment the boy was there, the next he _wasn't_ , and arrows were coming from seemingly nowhere to hit every mark, every time.

Once the monsters were all nothing more than lifeless husks on the floor, Dorian glanced back up at the boy. His hair was stuck to his face with blood, but the tattoos stood out stark beneath them.

"If you flinch back or cry out, they stop," he said, shoving his hair roughly back. "So you can always tell the ones who feared the pain by how plain the designs are, or if they're incomplete, if the Keeper didn't predict correctly."

Dorian moved closer, reaching to trace the intricate, detailed lines on his cheeks, his forehead.

"Did she guess right for you?"

The boy beamed up at him, pride writ plain across his features.

"Yes," he said firmly. "I did not flinch. I did not cry out."

Solas made that low, pained noise again, and gathered the boy close, glaring fiercely and possessively over his head at Dorian, who drew back, closer to the sure protection of the Iron Bull.

***

Killing Alexius was the hardest thing Dorian had ever endured, so when Solas and the Iron Bull both squared their shoulders and went to buy him that much more time, he could respect the boy's trembling horror and mute protests.

Solas caught his eye, and he thought there was more than the usual silent threat there, that Solas wanted his lover safe and _whole_ , and Dorian didn't know that he could guarantee that, not with how obviously devoted they were to one another, but he nodded solemnly anyway, and when he got the portal open, he hauled the screaming, protesting Herald with him.

They landed on their knees in the same hall, only Alexius was alive, and Dorian's heart skipped with unaccountable joy, and Solas gathered the boy to his chest and glared at them all, a silent demand for information in his furious gaze.

Dorian laughed from sheer relief and happily told his still-living mentor he'd _lost_.

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter is a stand alone ficlet, but I hate titles, so I'm making it a single fic.


End file.
